I don't understand all the hate for WDADU

[Milzinga]

Granted, it's not DT's best album, and it is their debut, but I actually quite enjoy the album. I really enjoy Dominici's voice and the album has some awesome songs on it, The Killing Hand, A Fortune In Lies, Only A Matter Of Time. The quality isn't ideal, but that wasn't really their fault. Overall I think it's a fun listen and I think the album provides a lot of enjoyment.

[?]

My 4th favorite album Even though Charlie wasn't the best fit for DT, I don't mind his performance on this album and though the production is bad, I've heard many worse-sounding records. The main thing is that the songs are great

[Onno]

It's still a good album, but there are some songs on it that I just don't really care that much for. The production (and CD's vocals to some extent for some people) is holding some people (including me) back in listening to the album much, I guess.

[CharlesPL]

I love WDADU my top 4-6 DT albums

[bl5150]

I love WDADU my top 4-6 DT albums

Ditto - #5 for me

[Rodni Demental]

It's a bit different, maybe that's what the problem is for most people. But it's still pretty solid and holds up pretty well to this day,

[Sycsa]

The production bugs me considerably (hearing that china at the beginning of Only a Matter of Time makes me want to rip the speakers out of the wall), so I rather listen to WDADRU. The songwriting is flawed, but almost every song has a redeeming quality. A good melody here, a catchy chorus there. Ytsejam is a blast. I just listened to the album while driving and, apart from a bit of dragging here and there, it flowed remarkably well.

[McNugg]

The Killing Hand still my no.1 DT song!  If they were to play that live soon I would die a happy man     

[wolfking]

It sits somewhere in the middle of my rankings.  Really good album, which suffers from terrible production.

[aprilethereal]

My least favourite DT album honestly. I adore A Fortune In Lies and Afterlife, although I rarely listen to the studio versions but to the Score version (Afterlife) and nowadays the LALP version (A Fortune In Lies).
Charlie's vocals don't really bother me that much, although AFIL kind of suffers from his performance.
Ytse Jam is pretty good as well, as are The Killing Hand and Only A Matter Of Time. The rest not so much imo.

[mirko_metal_88]

One of my favourite DT album... (as much as the majesty tracks)

Very close to stuff like Fates Warning, Queensryche, Crimson Glory, Rush, Toto...all of them together and brought to another level..

And i have to say that i prefer Collins to Dominici...and i hace to say that their recordings (majesty demos and WDADU) are handicapped by quality, but these tracks came out of a demo tape with no post-production works and a proper mastering & that kind of stuff and the first album was a very low budget record i guess...but kill'em all, iron maiden, fistfuls of metal has the same problem, so it's not so strange for a debut album in the late 80s!

Status Seeker is a perfect single, Fortune in Lies is very powerful and OAMOT is awesome...LFAGA has strong mid section and Ytse Jam is one of their best instrumental song, the opening riff is hypnotical!

it's really hard for me to listen to WDADRU, LaBrie is too bad on these tracks...it's just a different style and requires a different type of vocal range and a bit more aggressive than he is...

[Sir Walrus Cauliflower]

I haven't seen many people who actually hate it, just consider it weaker than DT's other albums. Allthough, I'm sure some hate it.

I really enjoy a few songs (Ytse Jam, TKH, AFIL, and SS) but I can't stand the quality or production of it. I think Dominici does a great job, but I prefer watching WDADR because of the production.

I still consider it a good album, but I rank it last. That certainly doesn't mean I hate it.

[King Postwhore]

It's Charlie's voice that kills it for me.

[Outcrier]

I haven't seen many people who actually hate it, just consider it weaker than DT's other albums. Allthough, I'm sure some hate it.

I really enjoy a few songs (Ytse Jam, TKH, AFIL, and SS) but I can't stand the quality or production of it. I think Dominici does a great job, but I prefer watching WDADR because of the production.

I still consider it a good album, but I rank it last. That certainly doesn't mean I hate it.

[puppyonacid]

I still would say its got better songs all round the Black Clouds.

[SeRoX]

To me, it suffers from production and vocals. Other than those, it's one of their best. While I enjoy the musics I start not to mind Charlie's voice so much. He is kind of OK.

[Dublagent66]

What is it with these threads anyway?  Nobody "hates" WDADU FFS ok?

[puppyonacid]

Bit strong!

I've read one or two disparaging comments about WDADU in my time here.

[Zook]

Inb4 Blob

WDADU is like an official released demo, but all the songs are great. There's nothing wrong with this album. Evanescence has a bunch of demos that are better than their official stuff. The quality isn't the greatest but the songs rock.

[Dublagent66]

Bit strong!

I've read one or two disparaging comments about WDADU in my time here.

Nah, but I'd say the thread title is a bit strong.

[iamtheeviltwin]

It's Charlie's voice that kills it for me.

That is one of my two major complaints about the album, although the reason Charlie's voice is distracting to me is that he just doesn't "sound" like Dream Theater.  Considering I only picked up WDADU after I heard Score...JLB's vocals were firmly established in my mind as the sound of the band.   WDADRU and the various live and bootlegged versions of the songs with JLB vocals have helped to fix the songs from WDADU into my mind as DT songs.   

It is my second complaint about the album which puts it at the bottom of the DT discography.  It seems quite obvious to me that the lyrics and vocal melodies were written with very little input from an actual vocalist.  The phrasing is strange and oftentimes "Dyllon-esque" with too many syllables jammed into a vocal line.  The vocal melodies are a bit "unnatural" and jarring at times and even James struggles to make some portions of the songs sound good.

Instrumentally the album fits well with the rest of the DT catalog and while a bit "unpolished" compared to later albums shows the potential of the core members and if it only relied on that portion of the band it would be a great debut album.  The vocals for the reasons stated above, however, are what push it down into the "Extended Demo" range and keep it from really being a great album on the level of the rest of the band's work.

[Shadow Ninja 2.0]

I'm in the minority, but I actually really like the way Charlie sounds on WDADU, and prefer his versions over almost any live versions with James.

[rumborak]

I'm actually in a similar boat. I'm just listening to Afterlife, and I most definitely prefer Charlie's singing over James' WDADRU rendition. (that might of course be partially due to James' overall not-so-strong performance for that DVD).

[Buddyhunter1]

Even if I were to ignore the production and Charlie's uneven vocal performance, it's still my least favorite DT record.

The thing for me is... While none of the songs on the record are terrible (though LFAGA & TOWHTSTS come pretty close), none of them are all that great, either. It's so obvious that the band is still figuring out how to write good songs. The best songs on the record for me are A Fortune In Lies, The Killing Hand, and Afterlife, and the highest point those songs manage to reach is "pretty good". While some of their other albums have lower points than anything on WDADU, the album as a whole is just so consistently average that I never have any desire to listen to it.

[kirksnosehair]

I'm in the minority, but I actually really like the way Charlie sounds on WDADU, and prefer his versions over almost any live versions with James.

This is how I feel as well.  The JLB live versions just sound....wrong.   I guess it's because I got the album not too long after it came out and just got used to how it sounds and how Charlie's vocals sounded.


This reminded me of when I got Charlie's solo album and since I only had WDADU as an example of his singing, I thought the solo album had a different vocalist     

[?]

I'm in the minority, but I actually really like the way Charlie sounds on WDADU, and prefer his versions over almost any live versions with James.

I think some of the songs sound better with James' vocals, but most of them are more suited for Charlie. Most people will kill me for this, but IMO the original vocal melodies in The Killing Hand are way better than the superhigh ones by James in the Marquee version.

[Shadow Ninja 2.0]

Completely agree. TKH is fantastic on WDADU. Nothing else really compares.

[hefdaddy42]

"Hate" is a strong word.

But I certainly feel that it is not very good.  The musicianship is outstanding, but the production is kind of crappy, Charlie's voice is...Charlie's voice, and the songwriting and lyrics are amateurish.  It is a step up from the Majesty demos, but just one, short step.

Definitely 12th out of 12.

[lithium112]

AFIL and Ytse Jam are the only songs I like from that album but I'd never actually listen to the WDADU versions. I don't dig Charlie's voice at all and the production is just so amateur compared to any other DT album. Plus there was such a huge leap in songwriting from WDADU to I&W that they might as well have been released by two different bands.

I agree that maybe 'hate' is a strong word, though. I don't think music can be evaluated in a vacuum. There's always context that affects how I feel about it and in this case it just happens to be a mediocre first album by a band that I love. So I'll always think of it as an interesting historical piece of the band's development.

[mirko_metal_88]

I Agree with the idea of 2 different bands from WDADU to I&W (altought tracks like UAGM really reminds me of the 1st record)...and i gotta say that i would LOVE to have much more music from early DT to listen to

of course i'm happy of the direction that DT took from 1992...but i'm really in love with the majesty and WDADU stuff

[jammindude]

WDADU is like an official released demo...

<snip>

Hit the nail on the head right here.   

I'm not one of those big time sound quality geeks....most of the time.   But when an albums production is *exceptionally* terrible, it grossly effects my enjoyment of the album.   95% of the time, I honestly don't care.   And I cannot for the life of me figure out what people are talking about when they complain about "the snare sound" on the new album.   (whatever    I think it sounds awesome, and I can't tell the difference between the drum sound on any other DT record...other than it's *slightly* lower in the mix...which is a good thing) 

But there are a small handful of albums out there that are just so absolutely bloody AWFUL, that it makes them extremely hard to listen to.

WDADU was produced by Terry Date in the exact same time period that he produced Metal Church's "Blessing in Disguise", and to my ears, BID has the exact same problem.   There's NO separation of instruments, and the entire band sounds far away and "echo-y"...like the band performed the entire album at the back of a cave, and a single mono microphone was hung at the mouth of the cave.

Seriously.   WDADU was recorded from July 18th - August 12th of 1988, and Blessing in Disguise was recorded August 29th - October 4th.    I honestly believe Terry blew his entire paycheck from this time period on drugs.     I just don't get how so many of his albums sound so fantastic, and these two albums can be such complete disasters. 

[Shadow Ninja 2.0]

The production isn't that great, but it honestly doesn't bother me at all. It suits the album pretty well.

[son_ov_hades]

I seriously love this album! Number 4 in the discography for me, better than Six Degrees. I love every song, Charlie's vocals are great, and the production isn't bad(most underground metal albums from the 80s sound very similar). I rank When Dream And Day Unite as the second best 80s prog metal album, after only Fates Warning's No Exit and it beats Operation: Mindcrime.

[TheGreatPretender]

The lack of production quality has never bothered me at all about this album. What does bring it down for me simply comes down to the actual songwriting. Many of the verses have very awkward and uninteresting vocal phrasing, and that's what's really bad about the album. Charlie was actually really good as far as his singing ability on it, it's just what he did with it wasn't that good.

But all in all, I wouldn't say DT has a single bad album, and so even though this album is my least favorite, I still like it.

[jjrock88]

I enjoyed this album from the first time I heard it.  Its great; but when you put it next to Images and Words, there is a major difference